184 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



idea to get upon the fence occasionally and think a thought or two. 

 The farmer's job is not done when he has produced something, the 

 pie has to be distributed — passed around, and he has to see to it that 

 too many fingers don't get in on it. 



A great day is ahead for the farmer. It used to be that the lead- 

 ing citizen was a man most ignorant of agriculture. Today a man 

 who knows not agriculture is an ignoramus, fit only to send to make 

 our laws. And they used to think the farmer had hayseed in his 

 hair, and didn't know how to cut his whiskers, and wore one suspender 

 by preference. That old farmer is dead, and they are growing selected 

 seed corn over his grave. The high-class farm papers, the news- 

 papers, the telephones, and rural delivery killed him. The modern 

 farmer is on to his job, and what he does not know he is learning, and 

 the main thing he is learning is to take care of himself, and look after 

 his interests. You need not be surprised when he gets after the Beef 

 Trust, and makes it hot for the railroads. It's a part of his business. 

 The people are coming into their own, and are learning that legisla- 

 tors are their hired men, and that the machinery of the law was 

 meant to use. 



The packers are a great people. They have helped to make the 

 country what it is. They built the plants that slaughter thousands 

 of animals that it takes daily to feed the multitudes, but we have a 

 right that they confine their slaughtering to the animals, and let the 

 farmer live. We must look after the goose that lays the golden egg. 

 When the packers go beyond the purpose of their existence and com- 

 bine to fix prices and violate the law, the people have a right, and 

 ought to break up their illegal combinations. 



I hope I have not stated the case unfairly against the packers — 

 but if the Beef Trust is not a serpent whose head needs bruising, then 

 I am no judge of snakes. I will confess that I am a little bit sore on 

 packers. I have been feeding four-cent hogs on fifty-cent corn, when 

 I know and you know that the packers have arbitrarily held the price 

 there until they could load up their coolers to unload on the public 

 later at an exorbitant price and a tremendous profit to themselves. 

 And if that won't put a farmer on the war path, what will? I wish 

 I was a great big lawyer — big enough to be Attorney-General, I 

 would take a few rough-riding lessons, and tell you farmers to get 

 up behind, and we would charge the I'eef 'j'rust l)cfore breakfast. I 

 was a lawyer once — the kind yon read about — who got a diploma, but 

 never got a case. But I'm very well satisfied with my position — there 

 is a better opening in Missouri for a live, kicking farmer than for a 

 Democratic candidate for ofTice. 



